Boycott Workfare is a UK-wide campaign to end forced unpaid work for people who receive welfare. Workfare profits the rich by providing free labour, whilst threatening the poor by taking away welfare rights if people refuse to work without a living wage. We are a grassroots campaign, formed in 2010 by people with experience of workfare and those concerned about its impact. We expose and take action against companies and organisations profiting from workfare; encourage organisations to pledge to boycott it; and actively inform people of their rights.

Mark Thomas has spoken out against the use of workfare by British Heart Foundation: “As someone who fundraises and supports BHF (L2B bike ride regular) it’s gutting to see them join an exploitative scheme like Workfare. BHF involvement in Workfare has undermined my trust and committment to them as a campaigning group. I would ask BHF to reconsider. If they wish to keep their public status as a charity that is automatically thought well of by the public then they should cease their involvement with Workfare.”

A few months ago, British Heart Foundation was proud to say that “Around 1,000 of [people working in their shops] are on placements with us through Work Programme schemes and 600 [people working in their shops] are placements on Mandatory Work Activity.”

But since September’s day of action against charity workfare, more and more volunteers, customers and members of the public have been speaking out against their exploitation of the unemployed. Comedian Mark Thomas even added his voice saying “BHF involvement in Workfare has undermined my trust and commitment to them as a campaigning group.”

Our efforts are paying off and last week British Heart Foundation announced “Currently we are moving away from involvement in the mandatory work activity programme towards schemes which provide longer term voluntary placements.”

However, we have since heard that people are still beginning mandatory Work Activity placements in their stores. We want them to confirm publicly that they will end ALL placements which put people to work on threat of losing benefits. Please keep up the pressure until they do, and help make sure this charity which has profited from exploiting literally thousands of unemployed people pulls out of workfare entirely.

One Comment on “Help make sure British Heart Foundation go the whole way”

We must continue to work together to protect the rights of those in receipt of benefits. The present Tory led sham of a Government are making decision which affect the lives of millions using the alleged deficit as a reason. Its time they went.